24-Year-Old Makes $100,000 in Five Months Selling...Potatoes
San Francisco, California (PRWEB) October 07, 2015 -- Texas based web entrepreneur Alex Craig launched PotatoParcel.com (https://flippa.com/5583125) in late May. The simplistic prank site built with Weebly allows customers to send an anonymous message…on a potato.
Upon launch the site quickly exploded into an international sensation, generating over $60,000 in sales and attracting a flood of media attention along the way. Notable coverage includes a feature in Playboy, an article in Entrepreneur Magazine, and even an appearance on the Steve Harvey Show. On Tuesday night, the potato empire was sold to an anonymous buyer on Flippa for a whopping $42,000 - bringing Craig’s five month Return on Investment (ROI) to well over $100,000.
Originally listed for auction in mid-September with the tagline, “$60k worth of potatoes sold, countless lives touched,” Craig watched as the price rocketed to $28,500 on top of 88 bids, but eventually failed to meet the reserve price and went unsold. Undeterred, Craig continued negotiations into October before ultimately settling on a $42,000 sale price with an anonymous buyer late Tuesday night.
“It’s been an incredible ride,” said Craig shortly after the sale. “I always knew PotatoParcel would be successful, but never in my wildest dreams would I have thought I’d be standing here having sold the site in such a short amount of time - with over $100,000 to show for it.” When asked about the anonymous buyer with whom he made a deal Craig responded, “All I can say is the buyer is seasoned entrepreneur with a wealth of experience in the online eCommerce space and an amazing vision for the site. I’m just as excited as everyone else to see where they take it.”
Perhaps it is fitting that a business, which allows its customers to send anonymous messages, would ultimately be purchased by an anonymous buyer. In a chat via email the buyer offered insight into the acquisition decision saying, “From the moment I hit the site I couldn’t stop laughing, but I also couldn’t ignore the potential business opportunity.” He continued, “Alex has done a great job building a global brand, and I'm looking forward to taking over the reigns and getting to work shipping potatoes.”
PotatoParcel follows a number of viral websites listed up for auction on Flippa including fellow prank ecommerce site ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com, which was sold on Flippa for $85,000 in January (https://flippa.com/3783970).
When asked what he’d do next, Craig said he’d be taking time off. “I’ve spent most of the past 5 months shipping taters, so I’ll use some of the money to take a vacation, and then I’ll use the rest to invest in new projects and businesses – you haven’t seen the last of me.”
The buyer was unavailable for final comment, presumably because they were inundated with potatoes.
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More about Flippa.com
Flippa was spun out of the SitePoint.com Marketplace in 2009 by founders Mark Harbottle and Matt Mickiewicz, also Founders of 99designs.com and Hired.com. Since then, it has processed over $150,000,000 in transactions of websites, domain names, and smartphone apps.
In the past, websites sold on the platform have included The Inquisitr (for $330,000), ShipYourEnemiesGlitter.com (for $85,000), and even Facemash.com (which was originally launched by Mark Zuckerberg and sold on Flippa for $30,000 in 2010).
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Joseph Carroll
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Luke McCormack
VP Operations
Flippa
luke(dot)mccormack(at)flippa(dot)com
+1 (415) 738-9702
Joe Carroll, Flippa, https://flippa.com, +1 (415) 858-1506, [email protected]
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